


Days Long Gone

by sunkelles



Series: Femslash February 2015 [9]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms
Genre: ADWD spoilers, Also there's an itty bitty hint of Theon/Robb but it's just kinda there, F/F, Femslash, Femslash February, Forgive Me, I fuck with canon, Lyanna Fosters in the Rills, Okay so this crack pairing sort of just happened, Sorry Theon your life still sucks here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-10
Updated: 2015-02-10
Packaged: 2018-03-11 00:35:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3309104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunkelles/pseuds/sunkelles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Barbrey has many grudges, and even more regrets.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Days Long Gone

**Author's Note:**

> I own nothing. A lot of this exchange was taken from ADWD because I am a lazy piece of shit. 
> 
> So this kinda just happened??? An AU where Lyanna fostered in the Rills and she and Barbrey fell in love and had a lot of sex.
> 
> I have officially reached Femslash Hell, friends. Pray for my soul.

The candlelight in the crypts gives his gaunt face an almost otherworldly quality. The boy could realistically just be another one of the corpses.

“My lady,” the boy says, and Barbrey can tell that he didn’t intend to say anything, “why do you hate the Starks?” She looks at him more closely, and a look passes over his face that she recognizes. She’s smart enough to be able to tell when someone fell in love with someone they shouldn’t have

“For the same reason that you love them,” she says. She won’t elaborate. There’s no reason to dredge up anymore of the boy’s ghosts when she’s here to dredge up her own.

He tries to protest it, tries to deny the truth of it, but she shuts him quickly down. Barbrey is no stupid woman.

“I wanted to be one of them,” he says with a look wistful for things other than status and family. Wistful for the things Barbrey got from Lyanna.

“But you never could,” she says smoothly, “we have more in common than you think. I know the look of a love-lost soul.” She doesn’t care who it was he fell in love with, doesn’t particularly care to bring it up. The boy is no longer Theon Greyjoy, that much is sure, but he’s still not what Roose’s bastard wants to make him.

Maybe that’s why she spills her guts to him. Maybe that’s why she talks about the feelings she’s never put into words before. Whatever this boy is now, he’s no threat to her.

It does not take long to find the only statue of a woman in the entirety of the Stark’s crypts. Lyanna’s statue doesn’t look a thing like her. The nose is too small and button-like, and the sculptor couldn’t put the look of wild joy into her eyes. Lyanna’s statue looks more like a Southron beauty than the woman she knew. She runs a soft, soothing hand over the stone of the cheek and then turns away. Dwelling on memories of Lyanna always brings her pain.

“Have you ever heard the tale of Lyanna Stark,” she asks. He looks off, obviously not expecting her to want an answer.

“Have you?” She prompts.

He looks startled once he realizes that her question wasn’t rhetorical, but he’s a survivor. He’s been walking on eggshells for long enough to tread cautiously and do as he’s told.

He opens his mouth to speak.

“The Starks always said that Prince Rhaegar stole her away and raped her,” he pauses a moment, contemplating whether or not he should tell the rest of the tale. The part that tries to make a Southron romance of the whole grisly affair exists up North, but it’s told in hushed tones. Most people knew better than to shout it to the world. They knew better than to beg to face Lord Stark’s wrath.

He makes a decision and says, “but some people say Lyanna ran away with him.” Barbrey actually laughs at him for giving that version any credence.

“She wouldn’t have run off with him,” she says dismissively, “she didn’t even like men.” The boy’s distant blue eyes instantly shift into focus.

“You’ve never heard that version of the tale?” She asks with what for her amounts to a light laugh. Of course he hasn’t. She and Lyanna are the only ones in the world who knew that part. Barbrey never even told Bethany that, and she told Beth everything.

“Lyanna fostered at our keep in the Rills for a few years,” she says. It’s weird to put this story into words, but she supposes it would be even weirder if she went to her grave without ever having spoken it.

“We were lovers,” she says, almost glibly, and she wishes there were a better way to convey they felt, the way she still feels. She doesn’t know how to find the words for the feeling of stolen kisses beneath the stars, of races through the Rills, of whispered sweet nothings after making love. There aren’t words for it, and she supposes he wouldn’t understand. Looking at the boy’s actions, his love was unrequited, which causes a completely different breed of joy and pain.

“Her father called her back to Winterfell when she was betrothed to Robert Baratheon,” she says, “and I never saw her again.” The night before she had to leave, they made frantic, desperate love and curled into each other’s arms. They made promises so grand and lovely they could never keep them. No one in the world could keep the romantic promises of teenage girls.

Barbrey says, “She said she’d see me again as soon as she could." Lyanna also said that she’d run away and come back to the Rills, but neither part amounted to anything. Those days seem so long ago now, but Barbrey can never escape them. She can never escape the melodic sound of Lyanna’s laughter after she’d beaten her in a horse race, or the sound of her moans after Barbrey had discovered the spot that made her scream.

“She loved me,” Babrey says, and a smile curls across her lips. _And I love her._

“I wed Lord Dustin, and after the war, I never saw either of them again.” Her voice doesn’t crack. She’s stronger than that. Her heart has frozen and pumps naught but ice through her veins. She sends a look to the sculpture of Ned Stark. His is more accurate than Lyanna’s, but that might be because he looked like a statue as he lived. Ned never had half as much life in him as Lyanna did, nor half the reason to live as her, but he’s the one who lived. He outlived both her lover and husband.

“Ned Stark didn’t get there fast enough to save Lyanna, and he returned from Dorne with her bones and my husband’s horse. He told me that my husband died an honorable death, but it didn’t matter. I had a horse while my husband’s bones were buried somewhere in Dorne." She pauses a moment, and takes a few deep breaths. She refuses to let the grief flood into her voice, and fills her tone instead with bitter, icy anger.

"He brought Lyanna’s bones back to rest where she would have wanted them to, but rest assured that he will not rest beside her.”

“Ned Stark’s bones won’t make it past Barrowtown,” she says, and she knows there’s a dangerous glint her eyes. Barbrey relishes in that. She’ll most probably feed them to her dogs, but she sees no use in telling the boy that.

 

She sends the boy a look and says, “We are done here.” Then, she turns away from the land of the dead and prepares to reenter the land of the living. Barbrey isn’t altogether sure that she wants to, but she must.

She’s a survivor too.

**Author's Note:**

> So I really love Barbrey Dustin. I just really, really love Barbrey Dustin and I like coming up with scenarios where I get to write her. 
> 
> I also like to imagine that she and Theon form a club where they smoke and drink and rant about the Starks. Jeyne Poole can come too.


End file.
